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      • Murky global arms trail leads to volatile South Sudan

Murky global arms trail leads to volatile South Sudan

Tanks traced via satellite imagery to region stockpiling weapons in case civil war reignites

THE MYSTERY of what happened to 33 Russian-made T-72 combat tanks discovered by Somali pirates aboard a Ukrainian ship they hijacked ten months ago has been solved.

The tanks, with enormous fire-power and each weighing 41 tonnes, have begun arriving - in breach of a peace agreement - in the semi-autonomous province of South Sudan, according to Jane's, the world's leading military intelligence publisher.

The T-72s aboard the MV Faina were one of three clandestine tank and heavy weapons deliveries to South Sudan accidentally revealed to the world by the pirates. The tanks were being sent to South Sudan in preparation for a new war in case Sudan's 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) - brokered by Norway, Britain and the US - collapsed.

Fortunately, the 110-year-old Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague last week reached a decision on the disputed Abyei region which has probably saved the CPA and has paved the way to a referendum on South Sudan's secession and independence from Sudan in 18 months' time.

South Sudan is certain to vote for independence from Sudan, Africa's biggest state, setting a precedent in Africa, whose organisations have previously maintained that the continent's post-colonial boundaries are inviolate.

The oil-rich and well-watered Abyei region straddles the border between South Sudan and the powerful north, with its capital in Khartoum, and was claimed by both sides. North-South fighting there last year left more than 100 dead and the main town, Abyei, reduced to ashes. It also threatened to trigger again the country's 22-year civil war which was ended by the CPA. It is estimated more than two million people died in the conflict, with four million becoming refugees.

The five-judge Permanent Court of Arbitration redrew Abyei's borders and the compromise has been accepted by both the Sudan government in Khartoum and the semi-autonomous South Sudan administration in Juba.

In a story worthy of John Le Carré, Jane's, citing satellite and intelligence evidence, traced the circuitous journey of the tanks and other weapons aboard the MV Faina from 25 September last year, the day Somali buccaneers hoisted themselves aboard the ship and the 17-member crew surrendered. The Faina's captain, Vladimir Kolobkov, died of a heart attack soon after the hijack and his captors put his body in the ship's freezer for later return to his family.

Once aboard, the pirates discovered that, in addition to the T-72s, there were also six anti-aircraft guns, 150 grenade launchers and thousands of tonnes of small arms and ammunition.

The pirates demanded a ransom of US$20 million for the release of the Faina, its crew and cargo, triggering more than three months of negotiations. Finally, with the Faina surrounded by the United States' 5th Fleet and the pirates threatening to blow up the ship unless their demands were met, they settled for $3.2m, paid in dollar bills which were parachuted on to the Faina's deck from a light aircraft.

The question was: where would the Faina head next? Its original destination was the Kenyan port of Mombasa. The Kenyan government claimed the Russian tanks were intended for its army, even though its small armed forces were entirely equipped with British and American weaponry.

However, Edward Mwangura, head of the Mombasa-based non-profit East African Seafarers' Assistance Programme, which works to free ships held by Somali sea raiders, said he was convinced the tanks were intended for South Sudan. Among his evidence, he said, was the Kenyan government's inability to produce certificates proving ownership of the weaponry.

Mwangura was arrested by Kenyan security forces and charged with "making alarming statements to foreign media touching on the security of the country".

But Jane's last week confirmed the accuracy of Mwangura's allegation. The popular Seafarers' Assistance chairman, subsequently released from detention, is to be the subject of a Hollywood film with Oscar-nominated actor Samuel L Jackson as Mwangura.

Jane's said that once the ransom had been paid the tanks were unloaded in Mombasa and taken to Kahawa army base outside Nairobi.

It said satellite imagery surveillance from March onwards showed "a pattern of tanks making their way north" from Nairobi to the South Sudan border.

Again via satellite imagery, Jane's identified the final destination of the tanks as a compound northeast of Juba controlled by the military wing of the South Sudan Army.

Quoting intelligence reports, Jane's said there had been at least three ship deliveries of tanks, totalling more than T-72s, via Mombasa for South Sudan, the first of which had been in November 2007.

The defence publisher concluded: "South Sudan is assembling an armour fleet, preparing for any eventuality in its enduring dispute with Khartoum."

While other mysteries surrounding the incident remain, it has been established that the owner of the Faina - which has had at least three previous names and is registered in Belize - is a Ukraine-based Israeli named Vadim Alperin.

He has links to Mossad, Israel's national intelligence agency, and Mossad front companies in Kenya.

A photograph newly published on a US intelligence website shows Alperin meeting the Faina on arrival in Mombasa in February with the chief of Ukraine's foreign intelligence service, Mykola Malomuzh, by his side.

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